Traditional building skills praised

A workshop on revitalising Indigenous Architecture and Sustainable Building Skills was held last week.

The workshop, designed to develop a platform for the regional commitment to revive and preserve the traditional architecture and building skills, brought together participants from the Pacific Islands to explore the traditional architecture.

The workshop exposed the traditional architecture and building skills of Samoa, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Tonga, Niue and New Zealand.

The Pacific island participants also had the opportunity to explore traditional architecture of China and Japan and to engage in the building phases of the Samoan Fale. In his assessment, Japanese Conservation Architect, Kazuhiko Nitto, lauds the Samoan Fale saying that it is sustainable as compared to the traditional houses of Japan.

In building the Fale, resources are collected from the local environment while in Japan, they use something imported and so there are the wealth issues, they have this thing called ‘sick house’ there is some kind of sickness coming from the paint or asbestos (material used in roofing) and then the oil.

“The Fale is very unique because the environment is quite hot so the fales make more shade compared to other region,” he said.

In terms of structure, he finds the Samoan Fale unique due to the excellent knot-tying skills. “This (Samoan Fale) is quite a strong structure against earthquake, concrete structures are very vulnerable but Samoan Fales are resilient.” During the workshop, challenges confronting the Indigenous

Architecture and Sustainable Building Skills were also raised.

According to a participant from Cook Islands, the demand of building traditional houses is very low even though there are some parts of country that wishes to preserve them.

“I don’t know why but with the small population and life is going into the modern house versus the traditional house. It is not really demanded as a place to live.”

Another challenge raised is that many of the house builders in the past took to the grave their knowledge and skills and what we have now with our tufuga’s is not complete. Some skills and knowledge have gone.

In light of the vulnerable state of traditional architecture and building skills in the Pacific, the participants produced an outcome statement.

“We recognize that our traditional buildings and associated building skills are losing their authenticity due to many factors both environmental and social. We agree that our indigenous architecture is central to the preservation of our unique cultures and in urgent need of safeguarding due to climate change and an increasingly globalised Pacific.”

The preamble reads.

“In order to achieve integrated safeguarding we must establish training, research and networking that is both multidisciplinary and intergenerational.”

Their recommendations to the National Governments include: strengthening of the qualification/accreditation and TVET programmes for the recognition and advancement of tufuga skills, provision of a land of for environmental initiatives to revive replanting of raw materials needed in traditional house buildings, support the establishment of a “Tufuga Association,” provide tufuga with subsidies and other incentives to continue traditional building and transmission of their knowledge to young people, establishment of a learning centre for traditional arts and craft skills, nomination of traditional house building skills for international recognition by the Intangible Cultural Heritage (I.H.C.) Convention and the development of a cultural policy related to ICH safeguarding.

Their recommendation to the private sector is for them to provide sponsorship for awareness raising programmes on ICH, inclusive of indigenous architecture and the establishment of a partnership with tourism sector to increase employment opportunities for builders.

Meanwhile, their recommendation to the regional agencies include: Pacific Island Forum to recognize a “Tufuga Association” inclusive of master builders of traditional homes and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community to provide technical cooperation for the revitalization of traditional house building skills through training, policy development, implementation and monitoring, as part of culture industry development portfolio.

To the International Training Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage (C.R.I.H.A.P: provision of fellowship for young people to build capacity for ICH safeguarding and the training of tufuga in facilitating knowledge transmission of their building knowledge and skills. And to UNESCO : provision of financial assistance under ICH Fund in the preparatory works to inscribe indigenous house building skills in the Pacific, including inventory making and the establishment of roster of specialists/consultants in indigenous architecture and traditional house building skills.

The workshop is conducted by the Ministry of Education, Sports, and Culture with funding from the CRIHAP with technical assistance from the UNESCO office for the Pacific States and facilitated by the MESC-Culture Division.

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